This invention relates generally to the merchandising of manufactured articles or products and more particularly to a vending machine and an associated product merchandising system.
Automatic vending machines within which manufactured articles or products are stored and dispensed therefrom to customers in response to coded inputs from a keypad after the machine is enabled by insert of a coin or token, are already well known. The dispensing of articles together with the reception of articles in the form of paper currency and bank deposits, respectively, is also well known in the art in connection with automatic teller machines presently in wide-spread use. Such automatic teller machines also involve the recording of transactions, the updating of computer memories, the issuing of receipts, the operation of visual monitors to provide user instruction, as well as other related banking functions.
The use of the attributes of the automatic teller machines in combination with automatic product vending operations for merchandising of manufactured articles such as video recorder cassettes has already been proposed and commercialized to a limited degree, involving the use of automatic vending machines with control systems enabled through credit card validation operations. Such prior vending machines and associated operational controls have suffered from various problems in attempting to adapt existing computer technology and automated vending equipment to the merchandising of manufactured products such as video cassettes. Such problems involve, for example, operational reliability and efficiency, servicing facility and transaction security.
It is therefore an important object of the present invention to provide a manufactured article merchandising machine and system through which rental, purchase and article return transactions may be automatically performed together with related transaction accounting operations based on validated customer credit status.
It is an additional important object of the present invention, in accordance with the foregoing object to perform the various merchandising and related functions in a more efficient and reliable manner than was heretofore possible based on existing and known technologies.